PALACE boss Patrick Vieira has hailed his side's win over Watford as "really important".

Vieira’s side looked composed and clinical in the final third as the Eagles boss got the better of his immediate predecessor Roy Hodgson, and Palace climbed above Leicester into 11th place, nine points above 18th-placed Burnley.

The Eagles put four past the Hornets as Jean-Phillippe Mateta opened the scoring before Conor Gallagher rediscovered his form in front of goal to take his season tally to eight.

Your Local Guardian: Crystal Palace's Conor Gallagher scores his sides second goal during the Premier League match at Vicarage Road, WatfordCrystal Palace's Conor Gallagher scores his sides second goal during the Premier League match at Vicarage Road, Watford

Wilfried Zaha rounded off the night with a brace of goals in the final five minutes of the game.

In his post-match press conference, Vieira told the media: “The result was really important.

“I think when you’re looking at the last couple of games and you’re looking at our performances I think our performances were good but we were missing this clinical finishing.

“I think today our game was more complete and we defended well, we used the ball quite well.

“We stick together in a difficult period and when we had chances we scored in an important moment of the game and overall it was a really good team performance.”

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